Verses such as the one above tend to be unpopular in our day. It is easy to see why, because it is an open invitation for people to complacently say that the poor should be “content with their station in life,” which runs directly counter to biblical passages such as James 2.15-17.

But the fact that something can be misused by sinful men doesn’t automatically make it untrue, and verses such as the one quoted must be true, not least because it is scriptural, but also because to deny it is effectively to deny divine providence. The result would be a deist God, who sits in heavenly glory, but allows the universe to go pretty much its own way, without intervening in the lives of men. Even if such a God existed, prayer to him would necessarily be ineffective, and he would be irrelevant to our every day lives, here on earth.